


What's In A Name

by Allecto



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2009916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allecto/pseuds/Allecto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has a nanny until he's 14.  That's weird.  Isn't it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Schuyler for the beta! *mwah* you're awesome.

“So this is the sprog, huh?”

Tony stares at the big man. He has face hair, like Daddy’s, only bigger and lighter, and Tony wants to touch it but Mommy said that was too babyish for someone who was _almost_ two.

“This is Tony,” Daddy says. “Tony, say hello to Mr. Dugan.”

“‘Lo,” Tony says. 

“Mr. Dugan’s going to be your—” Daddy stops, then runs his hand through Tony’s hair. “Your new nanny.”

Mr. Dugan snorts, but he also crouches down and holds out his hand for Tony to shake. It's bigger than Daddy’s, and he squeezes Tony’s hand, gently, and his eyes twinkle. “You can call me Dum-Dum, kid.”

“Dum-Dee,” Tony agrees, and Mr. Dugan laughs.

“Close enough.”

* * *

“Dum-Dee, Dum-Dee look!” Tony tugs on Dum-Dum’s hand until he comes and sits at the table to see Tony’s new Experiment. 

“What’s this, sprog?”

“A circuit board!” Tony beams. “Like Daddy’s, see? It makes _robots_ , Dum-Dee.”

“Not bad for a four-year-old.” Dum-Dum grins at him, and Tony feels all warm and squirmy inside. Daddy's at work, so he won’t see until dinner time, and Mommy doesn’t like Experiments, mostly, but Dum-Dum likes them, says Tony reminds him of all the good reasons for things to be messy, and Dum-Dum likes _this_ Experiment, which is most important of all because then he’ll help Tony clean up and maybe give him an extra cookie after.

Dum-Dum’s Tony’s favorite nanny, because Mrs. Williams fusses at him and makes him take baths and learn manners and spanks him when he’s naughty. Dum-Dum never makes him take a bath, says dirt is good for little boys, and so’s mischief, and he has a real gun, not like the proto—the pretend ones Daddy makes as examples—and he showed it to Tony, once, although he made Tony promise to never ever touch it, and especially never when grown-ups weren’t there. He goes with Tony to school, and stands outside the classroom, and pushes Tony on the swings and stares at the older kids who make fun of Tony for being younger, even though he’s smarter ‘n all of them or he wouldn’t be in school, and sometimes when they’re in the country he takes Tony for a drive and lets him sit on Dum-Dum’s lap and steer the car, and he likes robots and he’s Daddy’s friend but he never ignores Tony, ever, and once when Mrs. Williams was sick, he put Tony to bed and sang him a lullaby that Tony had to promise not to ever sing in front of Mrs. Williams or Mommy or Daddy ‘cause they’d think it was rude, and he fought with _Captain America_ and _Bucky Barnes_ and still thinks Tony’s pretty great.

He knows, ‘cause Dum-Dum told him so.

They clean up everything but the circuit board, which Tony leaves by Daddy’s place at the table, with a note in his most careful handwriting explaining he made it all by himself, just for Daddy, and then Dum-Dum gets him a popsicle and they sit outside by the pool and when the popsicle makes Tony sticky Dum-Dum just tells him to lick his hands or go swimming, even with all his clothes on.

It’s Tony’s favorite day in ages and ages and _ages_.

* * *

Tony doesn’t want to go to school. He likes school, he likes learning, but he doesn’t want to go _away_. He doesn’t want to leave his room, and his things, and Daddy tells him to be a man about it, and Mommy tells him to be her brave little soldier, and Dum-Dum tells him he’s coming too.

“Can’t let you go have all the adventures without me,” Dum-Dum says, and Tony bursts into tears. Dum-Dum pulls Tony onto his lap and rocks him, doesn’t say anything about seven being too big to cry like a baby, just rubs a hand on Tony’s back in big, slow circles. “I got you,” he murmurs, over and over. “Hush now, Tony-boy. I ain’t going anywhere.”

“But, there’s no nannies at _boarding school_.”

“There are now, ‘cause I’m going with you.” Dum-Dum laughs, not his big belly laugh that makes Tony grin back at him, but a quiet little chuckle in Tony’s ear, just loud enough to pierce through his misery. “I’m an old man, sprog, I go where I want.”

“You’re _not_ ,” Tony sobs. “You’re not as old as _Daddy_.” Daddy’s the oldest person Tony knows, and Daddy’s not an old man at all, he’s always working and going and _doing_ things, Mommy says it gives her a headache, and Dum-Dum isn’t even married or a daddy himself, he’s all _Tony’s_ , so he _can’t_ be old.

“I’m older.”

Tony just shakes his head and clings.

“Alright,” Dum-Dum says. “You got me, I lied, I’m a little boy of five.”

“I’m not gonna laugh, I’m not, I’m _not_.”

“You don’t have to.” 

Dum-Dum keeps rocking him, keeps rubbing circles on his back. His eyes are so heavy, almost as heavy as his feelings, but Tony doesn’t want to close them. If he closes them, he’ll go to sleep, and then when he wakes up it’ll be tomorrow and he’ll have to go away, and, “Dum-Dee?”

“Hm?”

“Why,” Tony asks, sleep-brave, “why doesn’t Daddy want me?”

“Oh, Tony.” Dum-Dum _does_ stop rocking him them, so he can brush the tears from Tony’s cheeks and tip his face up to look Dum-Dum in the eyes. “It’s not that he doesn’t want you, kiddo. It’s that this world isn’t safe yet. Your dad and I, and Cap and Bucky and the Commandos and Aunt Peggy, we all fought a big war to make this world safe, so that you and all the other boys and girls could live in it and never have war again. But things didn’t turn out so great, Tony, there’s been so much war since we fought, and the world just isn’t safe yet. May never be. So your dad, he keeps busy trying to make sure that nothing can hurt you, nothing big. He makes things to make your future better, see? Better than his past. Our past. And that means he doesn’t have a lot of time for other things, not if he wants a world that’s good enough to have you in it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Dum-Dee,” Tony says, “I understand.” He leans back into Dum-Dum’s arms, lets his eyes fall shut at last.

He can’t decide if he’s lied to Dum-Dum for the first time ever, or not.

* * *

Tony’s twelve the first time he really gets teased about having a nanny. A male nanny, to boot, and one who follows him to school.

Well, he’s not sure if it’s actually the first time, or just the first time he’s noticed, but either way, his cheeks splotch red and his hands curl into fists and it’s not fair, that’s he’s only twelve and hasn’t had a growth spurt yet or anything, and the other boys are sixteen, seventeen, and tall and strong, with deep voices and stubble and Tony may be taking classes with them but why, _why_ can’t he stay in the dorms with the boys his own age?

“Because none of them know you,” Dum-Dum points out. “They’d be jealous.”

“The big boys are jealous, too, they’re just too stupid to realize it,” Tony sneers.

“Hey now. Nothing wrong with not being a genius.”

“Are you taking their side?”

“Of course not.” Dum-Dum drops a hand on Tony’s shoulder, squeezes like he did the first time they met, strong and gentle. “I just think you’re better than resorting to insults.”

“I’m not,” Tony says, kicking at the gravel. “If I were better, I’d—I’d stick up to ‘em, like _Captain America_ , and get the—the _crap_ beat out of me, and maybe—”

Dum-Dum raises an eyebrow, and Tony deflates.

The boys had a point, though. It’s a little weird, isn’t it, that he’s twelve and his best—only—friend is his nanny?

When they go home for Christmas vacation, though, Dad pulls him aside at the family party and introduces him to a friend’s son, James Rhodes. James, who Tony promptly dubs Rhodey because no one at boarding school gets called by their first name, is sixteen, but doesn’t seem to mind putting up with a kid, or that Tony’s just as smart or smarter than him, or that Dum-Dum is a silent presence behind them when they sneak onto the roof of the house to talk, away from their parents and their parents’ business connections.

Rhodey wants to join the Air Force, wants to learn to fly. “Some of us can leave the ground without ever setting foot in a plane,” Tony says, and tells Rhodey about building things, about how when his mind is off on an engineering project he feels like he’s floating, sometimes, and when he touches down hours have gone by and he didn’t even realize it.

“I’m working on a code,” he says, “for a computer program? I want it to be, like, an artificial intelligence, but a _real_ one, that can learn and think and grow. It’s gonna take years to get it right, probably, so don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Sure.” Rhodey knocks Tony’s shoulder with his own, so Tony knows he isn’t being patronizing, and at the end of the night gives Tony his address, so they can keep in touch.

Tony asks his parents if he can’t go back to Phillips by himself. 

“Maybe when you go to college,” Mom says.

Tony sighs, and goes to his room to write to Rhodey; some day maybe someone _else_ will realize he isn’t a kid anymore.

* * *

“I’m proud of you,” Dum-Dum says, wrapping Tony in a bear hug and nearly tipping his mortarboard off in the process.

“For graduating _high school _?”__

“First of all, any education’s a good thing,” Dum-Dum starts. Tony wonders, suddenly, when he starting sounding so old. 

“In your day, I suppose you had to walk a mile barefoot through snow to school, uphill both ways.”

Dum-Dum cuffs him upside the head, then reels him in for another hug. “Second of all,” he says, “you’re a good kid—young man—and you’re going to a good college.”

“You’re only 70,” Tony says. It’s not a non-sequitur in his head, his brain racing several steps ahead of the actual conversation, but he’s still aware enough to know it must sound that way.

Dum-Dum’s known him long enough to go with the flow.

“Old enough,” he says. “I think we’re both a bit old for you to have me as your nanny, don’t you?”

Tony hugs him, and Dum-Dum laughs, hugs him back.

“Your folks are coming,” he says, and Tony steps away, turns to smile at his mother and shake dad’s hand, greet the Headmaster like it wasn’t just last week he was threatening to expel Tony for spiking the punch at the Senior Prom.

* * *

“College is terrible,” Tony says on the phone. “Don’t laugh at me, Rhodey does it enough for everyone. Dum-Dee, I’m serious. I don’t know how to do this without you. How’m I supposed to do my own laundry without everything turning weird colors, or remember to eat, or find the right screwdriver or—”

Dum-Dum just laughs harder.

“Well, you’re no help,” Tony scowls.

“Make your own help,” Dum-Dum says. “You’re a big boy, you can do it.”

* * *

Tony knows it’s bad when his father calls him. Mom calls, sometimes, usually on Sundays when he is reliably in bed (and hungover, but she pretends not to know), whenever her sense of maternal duty picks at her.

Dad never calls.

Dum-Dum says it’s because he already tells Dad everything, and it’s probably true, to some extent. Dad’s definitely the type to figure that there’s nothing Tony could want him to know that Dum-Dum wouldn’t already know anyway, and to be fair to Dad, he’s right.

There’s an awful lot Tony _doesn’t_ want him to know, only most of which he’s told Dum-Dum, of course, but if Dad wants to know his kid, he can stop trying to make the world so amazing for everyone else and pick up the damn phone once in awhile, or send a message over CompuServe, or hell, a fax. Tony isn’t picky.

Only then his phone rings, and it’s Dad, and the bottom falls out of his stomach.

Out of his world.

“It was a heart attack,” Dad says, and, “he went quickly,” and, “sending a plane; do you have a suit with you, or should your mother bring one to the airport?”

“I have one,” Tony says. “I. I have to go shave.”

He doesn’t remember shaving, later. Doesn’t remember brushing his teeth, or throwing clothes into a bag, sending email to his professors. He remembers Rhodey hugging him, offering to come, because no one should face Howard and Maria Stark sober and alone, because no one should face the funeral of—because he’s Tony’s friend. He also has a midterm next week, and Tony, Tony’s a selfish bastard, but.

He wants to be alone, for awhile.

Everything is numb, buzzing, like when he’s had some really good weed but hasn’t reached the giggly stage yet, or the munchies. Like when he’s coding, but without the white heat of. Well, it’s not really like anything, except emptiness.

He tries to grow a mustache, not that it’ll come in in time for the funeral, but because. Because.

Dad makes him shave it off, which is fair. It was rather scraggly, nothing like Dum-Dum’s. He’s only sixteen, after all.

Obie rests a hand on Tony’s shoulder, keeps him close throughout the service. He wants to shake it off, too close to someone else’s big, warm, hand, but he can’t quite bring himself to duck away. 

Aunt Peggy kisses his cheek, then whisks Dad off to talk, and there are a lot of men and women Tony never met, veterans, and their kids and some grandkids, even, because not everyone waits as long as Dad did to have children, and Tony doesn’t want to be around any of them.

Dum-Dum was all of theirs, he knows that, he was larger than life and a hero and—but that was Dum-Dum Dugan.

Tony didn’t know Dum-Dum Dugan.

Tony knew _Dum-Dee_. Dum-Dee, who maintained until the day he died that he was a nanny, not a bodyguard, and Dum-Dee, who watched over Tony at school and taught him to swim and tucked him in at night and. Dum-Dee, who liked drinking and smoking and women and Tony’s robots and _Tony_.

He disappears into his room, and doesn’t come out until everyone’s gone. Mom and Dad yell at him, but that’s nothing new.

The next day, he flies back to MIT.

* * *

The reporter for _Time_ is tall and blonde and busty; Tony likes her already. The photographer is short and blond and stubbly, and Tony likes him too, but the photographer’s already gotten his pictures and is packing up.

“One last question,” Ms. White says, giving Tony a grin.

“Anything for you,” he tells her.

“Your prize-winning robot is set to alter forever the landscape of programming and artificial intelligence in computer science, and you’re only 19. Obviously, we can expect great things to come from both of you. But there’s one thing the world has to know, Tony—what’s it name?”

“Funny you should ask. We tend, I’m sure you know, to name things in sequence. Windows 2.0 gives way to Windows 3.0, the Model A yields to the Model B. This guy here, my helper bot, well, he’s named for the best helper I ever had.”

Dum-E whirs his servos, and nudges Tony’s shoulder with his claw.


End file.
